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In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

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Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#211

Post by bugbuddy »

bgirard wrote: post #127
throwaway22032 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, you're just not thinking about it. Trivial solution: I walk to bank some day once a month, give them cash, give them account numbers, sent. It'd be done in all of ten minutes. Does it exist where you live? Maybe, maybe not. Hell, if I knew you I'd do it for you, I'd enjoy obfuscating my accounts. And no-one is saying that literally every transaction has to be done in cash, just that it should be _possible_ to do…

I care barely drive to a bank within 10 minutes, which isn't the bank I have an account with. It's only open during my work hours (9-5pm M-F), or I have to go on a Saturday. The wait time to see a clerk alone are often 10 minutes or more. And the clerk can't help me make certain payments that require me to use a web portal or mail a cheque. > The idea that cash is this hilariously inconvenient thing is a complete fab…

>> The idea that cash is this hilariously inconvenient thing is a complete fabrication.

>That's a strong statement without considering that your experience might not match others'.

IMHO, both the original statement and the respond are opinions. It may well be the case that cash is universally not “hilariously inconvenient.” Without some empirical evidence, it is just a shouting match.

In my opinion, cash is actually very convenient to use and encourages reflections on spending habits.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#212

Post by throwaway22032 »

lhorie wrote: post #184
throwaway22032 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one is talking about banning the concept of a transaction. It's about being able to pay for basic needs (rent, bills, food) via cash. This is not some impossible crazy thing. Cash was used for >90% of purchases including weekly bills not that long ago whilst skyscrapers and big business deals didn't involve briefcases of cash being thrown around.

But surely you must realize that there's more to money than just paying bills. Japan still has a strong cash culture, but even there people put their money in a bank. A cash society cannot be resilient to an evil government if you consider that said government could theoretically freeze funds at the bank level. In fact, this scenario sort of happened in Brazil in the 90s, and that's a country that had a very large po…

There is a distinction between freezing someone's accounts and ability to open accounts for the long term vs. them beginning to starve within days because they don't have any way to pay for anything immediately.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#213

Post by walterbell »

mortenjorck wrote: post #206
stickfigure wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Incorrect, the battle is partly won... Not in the slightest. You can mandate that people accept cash, but you can't force people to pay with it. The writing is on the wall; barring some sort of major social upheaval, cashless will be more dominant in the future. It's just too convenient. So let's figure out what kind of benign future we actually can build. "Everyone decides to use cash again" just isn't going to ha…

> The writing is on the wall; barring some sort of major social upheaval, cashless will be more dominant in the future. It's just too convenient. In classic HN fashion, everyone disagreeing with this is focused on their own solipsistic perception of the relative merits, technical and otherwise, of cash versus electronic payments. But convenience always wins. The not-yet-evenly-distributed future is represented by App…

> convenience always wins

Until people discover that the next place they wave their watch has customized the transaction based on the previous place they waved their watch. It's all fun and games until a voice speaks behind the one-way mirror, shattering illusions of payment neutrality, e.g. the incident in Canada which prompted the original article.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#214

Post by heavyset_go »

obviouslynotme wrote: post #208
ddingus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can fix that, and it is being addressed. Cash is a great answer to a whole lot of basic commerce, small scale, freedom style, between adults just adulting. The problem IS businesses refusing cash. The public really does not benefit and we have not shown we are able to avoid abusing electronics. One day maybe. Right now? Not a chance. Cash remains necessary and the costs are not crazy enough to warrant all the abus…

>The problem IS businesses refusing cash. They legally cannot, at least not in the USA, and I doubt in most countries. Thanks to the legal tender laws, businesses cannot legally refuse the legal tender, especially in its cash form. Once a deal is made and cash is offered, service must be rendered or it is considered stolen. A fun way to exploit this (before coin machines) was to go to tow truck lots, offer pennies, a…

Cash is only legal tender for debts. I can run a business that refuses cash as long as services or products are not rendered before payment. I can say that if you want to eat at my restaurant, you need to use credit or debit cards only.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#215

Post by throwaway22032 »

bugbuddy wrote: post #211
bgirard wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care barely drive to a bank within 10 minutes, which isn't the bank I have an account with. It's only open during my work hours (9-5pm M-F), or I have to go on a Saturday. The wait time to see a clerk alone are often 10 minutes or more. And the clerk can't help me make certain payments that require me to use a web portal or mail a cheque. > The idea that cash is this hilariously inconvenient thing is a complete fab…

>> The idea that cash is this hilariously inconvenient thing is a complete fabrication. >That's a strong statement without considering that your experience might not match others'. IMHO, both the original statement and the respond are opinions. It may well be the case that cash is universally not “hilariously inconvenient.” Without some empirical evidence, it is just a shouting match. In my opinion, cash is actually…

Nah, we're just not talking about the same thing.

He's saying that using cash is inconvenient because no-one uses cash where he is.

I'm saying that it's not because at its' core it's fundamentally just handing over a bit of paper.

It's not a statement about how many people accept cash where I am. I can't easily pay my mortgage with cash directly either. The point is that it's not an insurmountably difficult thing.

There also seems to be this bonkers strawman thing going on whereby loads of people seem to think I'm saying "don't ever make a non-cash transaction" which is bloody stupid. It's like, _a priori obvious_ that it's stupid. I hate this aspect of online discourse - if the thing you think I'm saying logically makes no sense, then I probably am not actually saying that thing.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#216

Post by NickNameNick »

The Reserve Bank Of New Zealand recently said that it's going to cost about NZ$100/per person, per year to continue maintaining NZ's cash 'system'.

It's beginning to research how that cost should be minimised, and how it should be recouped, because if vendors start charging cash-handling fees, it's likely to be unfairly distributed.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#217

Post by justinzollars »

Governments have a nearly perfect record of moving towards tyranny. Who could have anticipated Canada's move? I would have guessed Donald Trump would have attempted such a move against BLM protestors, but the move came from the Left. The media, is almost completely silent, and not one western government condemned Canada's actions.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#218

Post by selfhoster11 »

moralestapia wrote: post #146
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No COVID was the last push. Germs and all that.

I would be greatly surprised if cash were a vector for COVID.

It doesn't matter. It still feels weird to pay in cash even if some countries are starting to relax COVID measures.

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#219

Post by [deleted] »

heavyset_go wrote: post #214
obviouslynotme wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem IS businesses refusing cash. They legally cannot, at least not in the USA, and I doubt in most countries. Thanks to the legal tender laws, businesses cannot legally refuse the legal tender, especially in its cash form. Once a deal is made and cash is offered, service must be rendered or it is considered stolen. A fun way to exploit this (before coin machines) was to go to tow truck lots, offer pennies, a…

Cash is only legal tender for debts. I can run a business that refuses cash as long as services or products are not rendered before payment. I can say that if you want to eat at my restaurant, you need to use credit or debit cards only.

[deleted]

Re: In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously

#220

Post by heavyset_go »

bko wrote: post #102
chowells wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrying cash is exactly how you lose it all to police corruption, sometimes called civil asset forfeiture. Cash is no answer without sufficient legal protections. And if you have sufficient legal protections, cash mostly just buys you inconvenience. The problem isn't businesses going cashless. The problem is leaving structural control over money to profit-seeking enterprises.

If only there were a digital cash that you can self custody, easily verify and transfer. In all seriousness, I think some form of cryptocurrency could serve this purpose and move us away from relying on banks that act on behalf of the state. Obviously there's a whole lot of baggage with the current cryptocurrencies out there today, but there's no reason we have to resort to carrying around pieces of paper or voting f…

Monero was blackballed in the US, and same with Monero conversion services like xmr.to. Coinbase refuses to support Monero.

Turns out that governments do not like anonymous cryptocurrency at all.

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